I sprouted something!

So after the great cauliflower disaster of '13, I looked to the future and decided to learn how to sprout seeds. But first some other good news! Yesterday I harvested some of my kale and my friend and I made delicious kale chips. They were perfectly normal kale leaves. It was pretty exciting eating something I grew for the first time.
Hopefully I will get to repeat that coup soon with arugula. I put some arugula seeds in a clay pot on my sunny balcony a few days ago. I kept it moist and today as i was watering it I noticed that some of them had sprouted! In a little while longer I'll be able to harvest them as microgreens.

They are hard to see, but they exist!

When I was at the store buying arugula seeds I noticed some lavender. I made some little origami pots and planted the seeds in them. Now I'm keeping them watered in a sunny window and hoping for the best. I love lavender so having some of my own plants would be amazing.

Back to blogging: Killing plants and starting seeds

I haven't had much to say about gardening in a while, so I've been maintaining radio silence. I've been keeping up with watering and basic tasks like that, but nothing really new or exciting was going on. But now I'm back on a domesticity kick and part of that is preparing for my next round of planting.
First the sad news: I killed a cauliflower plant. Unfortunately it was the only one producing a vegetable, so I'm disappointed about that. I'm being pretty philosophical about it, though. I am pretty sure that I didn't clear out the tray under the pot quickly enough after rain and it succumbed to root rot, so at least I can learn from it and move on. I figure this was my practice garden anyway! Still, I'll be sad to not have home-grown cauliflower to eat.

Bear witness to the shame of my empty pot!

The good news is that my kale is getting huge! I don't actually know when I can eat it, but I guess now? Anyway, it's very pretty and I'm quite proud of it.

I guess this is edible now?

Now that it's almost spring (at least in Florida), I'm starting to plan my spring garden. I want to grow tomatoes, some sort of fruit and some herbs. I poked around the plant section of my hardware store today to get a feel for what they have, and I am getting excited about planting. One thing I found were lavender seeds. Lavender is my favorite herb, and I got an herb-drying rack for the holidays, so I bought it and am going to try to start them from seed. We'll see how that goes.
To practice seed starting (and also experience near-instant gratification) I am sprouting some arugula in soil. I read about microgreens and was rather taken with the idea of not having to wait long for them, so I grabbed some arugula seeds and a cheap little clay pot and threw it all together. Then I moved it to my south-facing balcony because the package said it needs full sun. Now I just have to wait and see. In the meantime I'll be figuring out how to sprout my lavender.

Doesn't look like much now, but hopefully soon
this will be filled with green.

Getting the hang of things

As I get more used to caring for my plants I'm settling into a routine. I only need to water them every few days. My favorite thing is plucking dead leaves from them. It makes me feel tidy. My least favorite chore is emptying the water from the trays under the pots. It's too much heavy lifting for me.
It's pretty exciting to see my plants doing well. They are all looking healthy and bigger than when I first got them. The growth I mentioned in this post is even bigger. Despite the fact that I am literally watching plants grow, it's pretty exciting to monitor their progress.

Grow little plant, grow!

A new leaf

And not in the self-help way, either. I'm apparently not killing my plants! Some of them have tiny little new leaves growing in. I'm so pleased. Who knew that watering plants and letting them get some sun would actually help them grow? With any luck I'll actually get some fresh veggies from this.

A new cauliflower leaf,
right there at the bottom of the center leaf.

A new kale leaf, all crinkly and fresh and new.

Preparing for my garden

For my first foray into growing things I can eat, I decided I wanted kale. I live in Florida, so winter is a good time for me to grow it, and I love to eat it. For some reason, I just had my heart set on kale. Now I had no idea what I was doing, so the first thing I did was buy a book. I got "Container Gardening for Dummies," because that sounded like it was written for people like me. There's a lot of information available for free online, but I wanted to get an overview that would make me feel somewhat competent, and I didn't want to have to open a Google tab every time I needed to do something with my plants. Next, I went to the plant section of the hardware store and asked a lot of questions. I filled my cart with a watering can, a shovel and a little scissor-like thing. I got a potting soil recommended by an employee and a fertilizer that can be added to water, and for the containers I just went with cheap plastic ones. I figured there was no need to upgrade to the pretty glazed clay ones on my first real attempt at growing things. I ended up with a mix of different styles of pots to break up the monotony. 

My cart about halfway through my shopping trip.

After I had all the accouterments I got to do the fun part: picking out plants. I had expected to have to start them from seeds, but when I talked to an employee he told me that it was a little late to start kale seeds in my area and pointed me towards a display with already-growing vegetables, including kale. Facing rows and rows of little nursery trays, I did what the book recommended and picked out small plants with good radial symmetry. After I had my tray of kale, I was struck by a sudden inspiration to try two vegetables and grabbed a cauliflower tray on a whim. I potted them later that day, but that's going to have to be it's own post.